Angry who? It’s time for some Bad Piggies

You know Rovio made 51 games before Angry Birds, with varying degrees of success, but since they hit on the magic formula with our fine feathered friends, new releases have been few and far between. The latest game to come from the Finnish developer doesn’t stray too far from that smash hit formula. The baddies from Angry Birds, those pesky egg-stealing pigs, are back and this time they are the heroes, sort of.

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It’s time to put your engineering hat on as Bad Piggies challenges you to construct an array of bizarre vehicles and flying machines in order to propel your hapless pig to the finish point. You can use basic blocks, wheels, propulsion tanks, fans, motors, explosives, wings, umbrellas, and balloons. You kick off each level by constructing a contraption, placing your pig inside, and then, more often than not, firing him into a wall where he’ll tumble to the ground in a pile of useless parts.

Through trial and error you’ll start to get a feel for the physics-based fun and understand what your vehicle might behave like in the building stage. If you get really stuck you can ask for hints which come in the form of an instruction book showing off suggested designs. Once you have a vehicle ready to go you trigger the action phase and see if your porker can reach the end point.

The aesthetic clearly matches the Angry Birds universe and the game borrows the same basic format with a three star finish possible on each level. Naturally you can amass extra stars by hitting certain crates along the way or by ensuring that you don’t use specific components. You’ll also unlock new content as you progress.

This is highly polished stuff, as you’ve come to expect from Rovio. It’s cute, it’s challenging, and it’s fiendishly addictive. I struggled to tear myself away to write this review. There are 60 levels right now and you’ve also got a sandbox mode for experimentation. Bad Piggies is completely free, supported by ads, and there will be free updates to keep you coming back for more. You could play through quite quickly if you just aim to complete each level, but the challenge of scoring three stars gives the game massive replay value.

It’s tough to imagine any game hitting the ridiculous heights of Angry Birds, but Bad Piggies is a solid release with a strong addictive hook and you should definitely give it a go.